The first story was "John Duffy's Brother" by Flann O'Brien. As I think I've said before, this is the kind of story I really like: where something odd happens, and nobody remarks on HOW odd it is. Of course it's weird that the guy thinks he's a train, but nobody tries to make anything more out of it...or they do...I suppose what I mean is that nobody tries to EXPLAIN it. It happens; how weird; let's move on. This story does it with more complete mastery than any I've ever read, and it makes me want to pick up more by the author.

"Story," by Lydia Davis, is an odd piece. I think it's supposed to be metafictional--there's a point where the author says she wrote down a sentiment obviously expressed in the text--but it just doesn't work for me. The central assumption of making this metafictional is that we never think of our lives like a story...which might be true for people who aren't as heavily steeped in writing and reading as I am, but for me, sure, I'm aware that sometimes bits of my life look like a bad movie. Just one of those things. I didn't find it particularly new or innovative. Beyond that, I didn't care about the characters, I didn't find the situations particularly exciting, and the writing didn't thrill me.

Michael Wilkerson's "Can This Story Be Saved?" was my favorite piece of the day--really metafictional, I think, putting forward a group of people who have MFAs as well as degrees in social work who provide therapy for stories. I wasn't totally sure about the way it portrayed counselling the author the same way as the characters, as for me it sort of broke what the story was doing by muddying the metaphor, but anyway. The ending was brilliant, though: trying to bring the story into line with what is expected of a story, the therapists totally destroy it. Or save it--I'm a big fan of the final story, in a sort of absurd kind of way--but it definitely is not what the therapists were going for!

Ah. And then there's Stephen Dixon's "Milk Is Very Good For You." This story apparently is trying to make a point about our dirty words, how they're just social constructs and don't mean anything. I have a big problem with this stance on language in general--in my opinion, either you take the thing as it is, or you point out that *none* of it has meaning. Sure, dirty words are artificial, but no more so than language at its politest. So already I'm prejudiced against the story. Then, we start in on the subject matter--lots and lots of sex which is apparently supposed to be shocking. *yawn* A guy is at a party for swingers; goes home and has sex with the babysitter; his wife comes home and joins in; then the neighbors watch and ask to join; and then it all goes fubar at the end. But really, other than the sheer number of people, there's nothing particularly abhorrent about it. It's still very heteronormative (the wife and babysitter have sexual contact, but it's apparently for the benefit of Rich, the main character...Rich Richardson, quite a juvenile joke. Anyway. I do like that his "made-up" dirty words are close to the real ones, though I had to think about it a little to decide...the slight skewing highlights his point better than completely altering the words, though as I said I still don't *agree* with the point.

But, I think, what it comes down to for me is that I feel, reading this story, like half the impulse or more that started Dixon writing was to get a dirty story published as literature. And that annoys me for two reason: it's not terribly dirty, and even if it is porn, it's not very good porn. It's essentially a list of people sticking various body parts in various orifices, and it's just kind of painfully not interesting. I don't know when this story was published, which may account for some of this, but...God. If you want to do something like this...make it kinkier, so it makes an impact, or make it better, so people are disturbed by how much they like it. Don't try to dress up a mediocre and dull dirty story by flipping some letters around and calling it art.